Quote of the day

“Go away, Huck. When we want a born-again criminal-loving Bloomberg, we’ll call you.”

Does Nancy and Co. REALLY Want to Take This Tack?

Pelosi points finger at McCain on Boeing
…”My understanding is that it was on course for Boeing before. I mean, the thought was that it would be a domestic supplier for it,” Ms Pelosi told reporters.
“Senator McCain intervened, and now we have a situation where the contract may be – this work may be outsourced.”
The air force originally chose Boeing to supply it with 100 tankers. But Congress cancelled the deal after it emerged that Darleen Druyun, a former top air force acquisitions official, had held illegal job discussions with Boeing while still negotiating the deal. Ms Druyun admitted boosting the value of the deal to help Boeing.
Mr McCain has pointed to his aggressive investigation into the Boeing deal as evidence that he is willing to stand up to powerful corporate interests.
The tanker scandal claimed the career of former Boeing chief executive Phil Condit. Ms Druyun and Mike Sears, Boeing’s former chief financial officer, were sent to jail.

Boeing’s arrogance (coupled with complacency and insider coziness) cost them that contract, not John McCain. Corruption in government was supposed to be a rallying cry for old girl, Filthy Harry and Howard, right? They’re ‘different’, ‘cleaning out the swamp’ kind of politicians, n’est pas? Honestly, they told me so.
But if Pelosi and ~ by extension ~ the Democrats are foolishly willing to feed Maverick red meat to feast on? By all means, wheel in the bloody parts carts and buckle up for safety!

UPDATE: The Democrats in Congress might want to scale back the outrage, period. Or at least refine their argument.

…The uproar over the Air Force tanker award has taken on a protectionist tone on Capitol Hill, with many members of Congress accusing the Pentagon of choosing a French plane over an American one. EADS’ Airbus subsidiary is based in France.
Leading the charge are lawmakers from Washington, Kansas and other states that stood to gain jobs from a Boeing win.
Boeing said the tanker contract would have supported 44,000 new and existing jobs at Boeing and more than 300 suppliers in more than 40 states.
It would have performed much of the tanker work in Everett and in Wichita, Kan., and used Pratt & Whitney engines built in Connecticut.
“By awarding this contract to Airbus, the U.S. government is leading those jobs to the guillotine,” Washington Democrat Patty Murray said on the Senate floor Thursday.
Boeing estimates that about 85 percent of its tanker would have been made in the U.S.
Still, had Boeing won the competition, its tanker would have

used a fuselage made in Japan and a tail made in Italy,

noted Scott Hamilton, an aviation industry consultant based outside Seattle.
…The real reason for the intense anger over the Air Force decision, Hamilton believes, is that it cuts to the heart of a long-running rivalry between Boeing and Airbus.
And anti-French sentiment is compounding the furor to least some degree, with some analysts speculating that the backlash might not have been nearly so fierce had the deal gone to, say, a British company.
After all, Hamilton noted, the U.K’s BAE Systems is a major supplier to the Pentagon and “no one complains about that.”

And nobody has a cow when Boeing sells planes to FOREIGN governments. THAT’S called “competition’.

The Friday Fuck Off Thread

In a new venue this week through the kindness of Mr. Bingley and THS!
And this week, there are so many fuck offs and so little time. But here’s a small list off the top of my head:
Fuck off to corporate dweebs.
Fuck off to my sinuses.
Fuck off to spammers.
Fuck off to the master cylinder on my car, to the tune of $Outrageous.00
Okay, that’s enough for right now. Take it away!
UPDATE:Just thought of another one: Fuck off to jackass writers who throw in utterly irrelevant and useless “facts” just because they happen to be technically true and would sound really, really good if they were actually relevant (but aren’t). Specifically, I’m thinking of this sentence:

Hydrogen—the most abundant element in the universe—is an attractive carrier of renewable energy.

(My emphasis)
Jeebus.

To paraphrase a current presidential candidate…

“YES, WE CANS!”
By way of my good buddy Julie, who sent along this heartwarming story. [wipes a tear] There is hope in the world.

The legal system works

And justice has been served:

Big breasts win verdict for Japanese pin-up
TOKYO (AFP) – A Japanese pin-up model says that her big breasts have not only boosted her career — they also helped her overturn a court verdict.
The bikini model, who goes by her professional name Serena Kozakura, was cleared after a court decided she was too well-endowed to squeeze into a room through a hole, as she had been found guilty of earlier.
“I used to hate my body so much,” Kozakura … “But it was my breasts” that won in court, she said.

Cool.

Kozakura, 38, was convicted last year of property destruction after a man said she kicked in the wooden door of his room and crawled inside, apparently because he was with another woman.
Kozakura had said the man made the hole himself.
In her appeal, the defence counsel held up a plate showing the size of the hole and said that she could not squeeze through with her 110-centimetre (44-inch) bust.
“The judges were very good-mannered as they showed no expressions on their faces. I guess they’re well-trained,” Kozakura said.

I guess.
Anyway, aside from the titillation (heh) factor, the reason I bring this up is that a listener emailed the following comment to the radio show: “Somewhere, Johnny Cochran is looking up from his location down below and saying…

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Bummer

Don’t you just hate it when things don’t go as planned?

AN electronic device designed to ward sharks away from surfers failed so spectacularly during a trial off South Africa that it was eaten by a great white.

I guess it’s back to the old depth charges.

A Test For Obama

A quick perusal of websites doesn’t really give any indication where Obama stands on the current mess in South America? You would think the clear potential for a shooting war between Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, with the added potential to engulf much of the continent, might be worthy of mention from someone who is offering “Hope” and “Change” for American Foreign Policy. As Sis linked to below, you’ve got Chavez sending hundreds of millions to a terrorist group, FARC, that has killed thousands in Colombia and was trying, it seems, to assemble materials for a dirty bomb. Chavez and Ecuador have mobilized their armies and have sent troops to the border with Colombia. Where are the words of support for Uribe from Obama (and Hillary)? It wouldn’t surprise me if Obama, instead of calling Chavez the insane dictator that he is, says “Well, if George Bush didn’t have us using so much oil Chavez wouldn’t have all that money.” The sole content of Obama’s foreign policy plan appears to be “if Bush did it it’s wrong.” He wants to sit down at a table and talk to everyone. Now that would make a nice tableaux: Obama, Uribe, Chavez and Correa; hell, why not invite a FARC leader as well, all sitting around a fireplace inspired to sing “Kumbaya” by scout leader Obama.
Perhaps he’ll change our motto to “Peace through superior speeches.”
Pathetic.
And scary as hell.

Emily’s currently hitting him with his other femur

Gotta hand it to him. He’s a hard-headed son of a gun.
Ya gotta respect that.

This Is Just a Test

Harvard gym tests Muslim women-only hours
Harvard University has banned men from one of its gyms for a few hours a week, a move to accommodate Muslim women who, for religious and cultural reasons, cannot exercise comfortably in their presence.
The policy is already unpopular with many on campus, however, including some women who consider it sexist.

“I think that it’s incorrect in a college setting to institute a policy in which half of the campus gets wronged or denied a resource that’s supposed to be for everyone”…

Of course, it’s a private school and they can dang test out any old thing they want. In keeping with the apparent Islamic custom of graciousness and inclusion, an unaffected Muslim student feels free to dhimmi dictate to her fellow Harvardians.

…Student Ola Aljawhary, who is Muslim and works out elsewhere on campus but is not one of the women who requested the change, rejected that argument.

“The majority should be willing to compromise,” she said. “I think that’s just basic courtesy.

We must show tolerance and respect for all others.“

Strange how the argument always works ’round to a bended knee before Islam.
Update: To the commenter from Saugus, Mass, who keeps posting anti-Muslim drivel under different names: Spare us. Go over to Cambridge and say it on the street corner, tough guy.

Tonight’s Bedtime Story

From our good friends at Bloody Scott

A junior schoolteacher, in Wiltshire gave her class a year 2007 assignment… get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it. So, the next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.
Katy said, “My father’s a farmer and we have a lot of egg-laying hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the front seat of the pickup when we hit a bump in the road and all the eggs went flying and broke and made a mess”
“And what’s the moral of the story?” asked the teacher.
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!”
“Very good,” said the teacher.”
Lucy, now you.””Our family are farmers too, Miss. But we raise chickens for the butcher’s shop. We had a dozen eggs at one time, but when they hatched we only got five chicks.
And the moral of this story is, don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”
“That was a fine story, Lucy. Holly, do you have a story to share?”
“Yes, miss, my daddy told me this story about my Uncle Rod.
Uncle Rod is a Harrier pilot in Afghanistan and he got shot down. He had to bail out into Al Quaida territory, and all he had was a bottle of whisky, a machine gun and machete. …Well, he drank the whisky on the way down, so it wouldn’t break, and then he landed right in the middle of 100 Al Quaida rag-heads armed with AK47’s. He killed seventy of them with the machine gun until he ran out of bullets, then he killed twenty more with the machete till the blade broke and then he killed the last ten with his bare hands.”
“Good heavens,” said the horrified teacher. “What kind of moral did your daddy tell you from that horrible story?”

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A Couple Pointers for Our Illinois Brethren

1. Ammunition manufacturers would be required to imprint a secret code on cartridge casings so that the purchaser of the ammunition could be identified.
2. When you purchase ammunition, that secret code would be registered to your name.
3. All your ammunition purchases would be registered with the Illinois State Police.
4. You would be responsible for all eternity for ammunition registered to you.
5. It would be in your best interest to destroy all expended ammunition casings because an unaccounted for empty casing could be used to frame you for a crime you did not commit.
6. You would have to surrender all unregistered ammunition you now own to the Illinois State Police.
7. Reloading would be banned.
8. The Illinois Department of Revenue would be authorized to place a tax on ammunition and raise that tax any time for any reason.
9. Taxes and increased manufacturing costs would raise the price of a box of .45 ammo to $200 or more.
10. Gun ownership would become too costly for most people.

It’s new ammunition ban bills on their way to an Executive Hearing tomorrow morning. Might oughta wanna call someone about them, if you feel so inclined. Chief Running Tab That 1 Guy has all the pertinent numbers should you fingers need to do some walking.

Coincidentally…

Nude man in gas-mask at large
Police in Massachusetts are hunting a mysterious naked man, who was seen by several witnesses wandering around town wearing nothing but a gas mask.

…Bingley seems to have gone missing.

…The naked man and his gas mask were next reported when a woman heard her doorbell ring. Looking out through her door’s peephole, she noticed that the person who’d rung her doorbell was naked, and wearing a gas mask.

Well, what else would one look through at something like that?

“Uh…Uh…Uh…Um.” Redux

Or was it “Run AWAY!!!!” ?
(Mercy beercups to Ann Althouse for the video.)
My reference to PBS calling him out? Here.

GWEN IFILL: Obama’s aides denied any meeting had taken place until the Associated Press published a memo written by an employee of the Canadian consulate. Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee, the memo said, did meet with officials at the Canadian consulate in Chicago.

Liar, liar, pantalones en fuego.

It’s Bad News For the Rest of US When Your Sugar Daddy

…is named Hugo.

The Obligatory “Everybody But Me…”

“…killed my dream!”

Bernanke: More must be done on foreclosures
…One of the suggestions Bernanke made was for mortgage and other financial companies to reduce the amount of the loan to provide relief to a struggling owner. “Principal reductions that restore some equity for the homeowner may be a relatively more effective means of avoiding delinquency and foreclosure,” Bernanke said.

One of the best things I heard all week in a similar vein:

“I can’t afford my Ferrari and now my congressman won’t take my calls!”

And he won’t. But if your homebuying vision version of The New Math went something like this:



…then I guess he’s music to your ears. Reality check says “if you couldn’t afford it beFORE the mortgage lender penciled in some magic earnings number, you still can’t.” Which doesn’t make it his fault you’re greedy and stupid. And it doesn’t make it my civic responsibility to bail you out.
I wanted a Ferrari, too, dammit.

Hi, Still Alive

“It Comes in Pints?” is currently experiencing technical difficulties, as many of you have noticed. The Lovely and Talented BlogGoddess Emily is on the issue and, if I’m reading the situation accurately, is at this very moment beating a corporate dweeb over the head with his own femur. I’ll keep you all apprised of the situation.
In the meantime, the Lovely and Talented Mr. Bingley has graciously offered some space here should a synapse actually fire properly in what passes for my brain. And I think one may just have done so:

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A Crisis of Faith

…I could really get behind.

After almost five years of war, many young Iraqis, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.
In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.
“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara Sami, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”
Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said:

“The religion men are liars….”

“Uh…Uh…Uh…Um.”

That would be me doing my Barrack Obama imitation at his impromptu news conference today. Silver tongued devil he weren’t sans tele-prompter. Then the word “skitter” comes to mind, because that’s what he does to exit the stage. To a collective catcall from the assembled press. (Link from ABC World News as soon as available.)
And you could really be in trouble if the first thing that happens on a PBS Newshour broadcast is that they basically call you a liar, then reprise your halting, less than messianic press conference. (Link as soon as transcripts available.)
Yoy.
Get me some popcorn.

I Can’t Imagine Being On This Plane

Well, actually, having been in the car when THS was driving in the 70s I think I can…
The second attempt went a bit better.

Lab And Brussel Sprout: A Tragedy In Two Acts

Did you ever get really frenetically excited by something…especially when you first got it, thinking this was going to be the
BEST
THING
EVUH

Only to be crushingly disappointed once you got your teeth into it?

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What I’m Drinking Tonight

Well, last night daughter was out of town on a ski trip with the youth group at church, so I decided to make mussels again, since Daughter doesn’t care for them.
And whoa Nelly did they turn out yummy

But what to drink with them?
Well, I have to admit that I have a soft spot in me for rosé wine, and I thought I’d give this one a try

I know it looks like some sickly sweet pink grenache/white zinfandel type thingy, but trust me, it ain’t. It is the Mulderbosch Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé 2006. I think it was about $10, and it really went quite nicely with the mussels. It has, as you can see, a very bright strawberry color and some nice strawberry/pomegranate berry flavors with some light tannins that give it more structure than you might think, but again rosés in general have that, which is why I like them with dishes like this.
Definitely worth buying a few more of.

When I Said I Lived With Wolves And Trekked Across Europe…

…as the orphaned child of Jews killed by the Nazis what I meant was I stayed in Brussels the whole time

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — A Belgian writer has admitted that she made up her best-selling “memoir” depicting how, as a Jewish child, she lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust, her lawyers said Friday.
Misha Defonseca’s book, “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years,” was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France.
Her two Brussels-based lawyers, siblings Nathalie and Marc Uyttendaele, said the author acknowledged her story was not autobiographical and that she did not trek 1,900 miles as a child across Europe with a pack of wolves in search of her deported parents during World War II.

The author apologizes for any confusion that this may have caused.